Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship ISBN: 978-93-5300-625-9

ACADEMIC PATENTING – REDUCING PATENT COST

AND CREATING MORE EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Hemant Rajveer Singh

Scintillation Research and Analytics Services Pvt Ltd, Mohali

ABSTRACT
In every country, Cost for getting a patent mainly depends on two factors- Governmental fee/Official and professional
fee/ fee by Patent law firms for drafting, IP searches, market analysis etc. Getting a patent isn't expensive at all if an
innovator/you has comprehensive knowledge of various steps involved from intellectual property filling to grant. This
paper provides information about how to save money during the patenting process. It also briefs how academic
patenting can be helpful in making university and college students innovative and business-minded professionals,
thus creating new job opportunities in the country.
Keywords: Patent and Patent Cost, Gap between R&D and IP, Do It Yourself (DIY).

INTRODUCTION
Patenting an invention is not very expensive at all.
You can perform most of the IP services on your own, thus cutting the patent attorney fee. Patent
costs can be categorized as follows:
• Searching costs
• Drafting Cost
• Provisional patent costs
• PCT costs
• National phase / foreign patent filing costs
• National phase / foreign patent prosecution costs
• Design registration costs
• Renewal costs
• Commercialization costs
You can perform Provisional patent search and Drafting on your own. Provisional patent
applications are not technical documents and need only “a full description of inventions”. Once
you get expertise in making drawings/mosaics and complete knowledge of patent drafting, you
can easily draft your IP application on your own without paying to patent law firms. You can use
various online patent tool for drafting, and it will surely reduce your patenting cost.

135
Govt schemes to promote patent filing in universities –
Governments of various countries are significantly promoting IP in their own ways. In India,
most of the Government agencies like Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD),
Modular Employable Skills (MES) under Skill Development Initiative (SDI), Ministry of Skill
Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) are continuously putting efforts in making skill
India. Although there is a government program initiated by the Startups Intellectual Property
Protection (SIPP) which awares organizations, universities and colleges about IP. Recently, the
government has extended the Startups Intellectual Property Protection (SIPP) scheme for 3
years till March 2020, to help entrepreneurs protect their patents, trademarks and designs.
Started initially on a pilot basis in January 2016, the scheme was in force till March 31 this year.
It is now being “extended further for a period of three years”, the Department of Industrial Policy
and Promotion (DIPP) said in a circular earlier this month. It is crucial for startups to protect their
intellectual property rights (IPRs) in this highly competitive world, it added. The government
last year announced several incentives, including tax benefits, to the sector under the Startup
India action plan.
“The scheme of SIPP aims to promote awareness and adoption of intellectual property rights
among startups. The scheme is inclined to provide knowledge of innovative and emerging
technologies to startups and assist them in protecting and commercializing their IP rights by
providing high-quality IP services and resources,” the DIPP said.
WHY IT IS IMPORTANT FOR COLLEGES/ UNIVERSITIES TO HAVE PATENTS?
The term Patent acts as a sword in the business world. According to the research conducted by
different academic institutes like National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and the Intellectual
Property Owners Association (IPO), it is observed that most of the highly citied universities all
over the world have done magnificent efforts to patent their research works. Universities like
University of California (489), Massachusetts institute of Technology (278), Stanford
University (205), University of Texas (191), Tsinghua University (184) have great track record
in getting patents. Thus, the overall research concludes that oversees universities are very active
in academic patenting.
Also, having maximum number of patents helps a university/college to obtain good ranking
among similar educational institutions.
· The recognition of excellence in research is always give more weightage, if university
holds respectable number of patents. Patent applications filed by universities are always
strategic and protective for future applications. So, it is necessary to file it in initially
rather than filling it at later stage by companies which are mostly for protecting market
shares.
· Universities spin- off companies or startups are more recognized as helpful for testing
business models and revitalizing.
· Innovative ideas published by students are helpful by leading companies to enhance their
existing products with more functioning and generating more revenue.

136
137
138
In India approximate cost factor involved in filling is given below:

I. Essential Steps to consider before consulting with a Patent Agent/Attorney to Cut Patent
Costs
· Once you have a clear-cut idea about your invention, do a patent search on your own or
through a professional patent search and get a list of competitive or relevant patents that
resemble with your invention. Jotted it down. Go through each patent, investigate and
clearly describe how your invention is better than the patented ones or what's novel feature
it has.
· Do a prior-art search on your invention, which includes how it would be helpful by
discreating other similar inventions to get brief application area. To get this done, you need
to pay lot of money to a patent attorney but can easily cut it down by doing it yourself. This
section is very helpful in preparing a final patent application.
· Do some drawings yourself (need to be perfect ones), but if you label each component in
the drawing, that can help you cut the time required for patent drawings and ease to shape it
down for professionals.
· Do brainstorming session on your ideas to know exactly how they work, and then you want
to list clearly which part of the sequence of operation is your invention and which steps are
from the traditional product that you are trying to improve.
HOW TO SETUP INNOVATION CULTURE IN A COLLEGE
R&D institutions, Universities, and Academic institutions play a key role in feeding educated
and skilled human resources to industries, government, teaching and R&D. The knowledge
society puts heavy demands on R&D in scientific, engineering and other areas to respond to
market needs quickly. Although, an initiative of the office of the Controller General of Patents,
Designs and Trademarks (CGPDTM), under Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion
(DIP&P), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt of India in association with National
Research Development Corporation (NRDC), New Delhi organizing IPR awareness capacity
building activities in Universities/Academia's in the country. By giving a hand by Private IP
professional law firms along with Government agencies it can easily fill the gap between R&D
and IP. More students will be aware about IP, more innovations can lead to be more startups and
more job opportunities will be there.
So, this mission of bringing awareness of IP at colleges and Universities can be accomplished
by-
· To assist in institutions in creating a strong IP ecosystem.
139
· Bringing more awareness programs and talks sensitize about IPRs and their protection.
· To identify protectable innovations and inventions of the students at college level.
· To suggest steps for transforming innovations into proprietary assets.
· To train about the mechanism of accessing and using IP information for further research
and development in developing new products and processes and for their use in business
development.
· Bringing a new IPR departments parallel to R&D at universities and colleges.
Patent grant- what are the options afterwards
(1) In IP commercialization, an innovator can build a new startup, or go for patent
monetization and patent licensing.
(2) Defensive patent is a patent term which is used with the main intention of defending/
protecting a company against patent infringement lawsuits. Defensive patent varies from
destructive uses for patents, which comprise producing Revenue/royalties or preventing
competition over legal action. A defensive patent can sue a company with Infringement
Law which includes complete evidences provided by a patent holder. Large collections of
patents can also shield a company by preventing lawsuits altogether.
CONCLUSION
In nutshell, it can't be denied that academic patenting is essential for increasing economic
growth of a country by building more start-ups from very early stages of university.
Academicians/researchers/students have already showcase their alleviating innovations
through their research projects and thesis research. So, it's essential to shape their inventions into
patents. This paper depicts that cost factor involved in filling patent can be easily reduced to
several folds if a college/university student knows, how to do various IP searches, drafting
mosaics and what the patent filling procedure is exactly. This encourages more students go for
patenting their innovations. More innovations bring more patents, and convert students into
entrepreneurs. Thus, academic patenting can encourage students to go for creating job
opportunities for others rather than finding jobs for themselves.

140